Imagine this scenario: one code-decrypting machine, one powerful unparalleled multi-billion device that cracks any existing code – now being made obsolete by a new program that creates codes so complex that it becomes unbreakable. This is Digital Fortress, a program created to cripple the U.S. Government’s most secretive and significant intelligence resource, the National Security Agency (NSA). Dan Brown had written his debut thriller, probing not about religion or paintings but on the issues of the modern techno-science.
Enter Susan Fletcher, the NSA’s top cryptographer, the beautiful and brilliantly intelligent protagonist, who finds herself in a fiasco never faced before by the agency. When Commander Trevor Strathmore, the NSA’s Deputy Director of Operations, contacted her from her vacation, she discovered that a recent program had entered the TRANSLTR’s confines, being challenged by an unbreakable code that threatens the very foundations of the agency itself. Little did she know that everything was not it seems to be. Her fiancé, David Becker, a teacher of linguistics, was being sent to Seville, Spain by the yet unknown source to recover a certain ring, once worn by the deceased Ensei Tankado, an ex-NSA cryptographer, who was sacked from his job due to his perpetual protest against the intrusion to the people’s privacy. This Japanese genius was the sole creator of the program Digital Fortress, his massive backfire towards the NSA itself – a devious step to paralyze the US securities and if once unsolved would cause so much pandemonium with advanced electronic global terrorism. Tankado, who demanded NSA to publicly admit about the existence of TRANSLATR or otherwise he would auction Digital Fortress to the open, was duly assassinated at Seville, leaving Susan, Strathmore and the rest of the team to solve the dilemma. It all then goes down to Greg Hale, also an NSA cryptographer, who was suspected by Susan as NDAKOTA, a code name pronounced by Tankado himself as his partner who knew about the pass-key, a code that would terminate Digital Fortress. Meanwhile, the NSA staff, Chad Brinkerhoff, the NSA Director’s Personal Assistant, was flabbergasted to discover that the recent financial analysis presented by the relentless Midge Milken, the Internal Systems Analyst, was way out of hand. It turned out the TRANSLATR’s latest decoding cost as much as $1 billion in its latest 18-hour decryption. As they all worked in the Crypto department to solve the riddle, the rise of the conflict started when the NSA main power went off, disabling the whole area’s electricity, leaving the TRANSLATR to depend on aux power only. Phil Chartrukian, the NSA Sys-Sec was the reason of the blackout, was pushed through the generator trapdoor and got electrocuted over the fibre wires. In total darkness, there Susan started to see everything quite clearly as chilling events started to unfold. Greg Hale claimed Strathmore to be the real bad guy, setting everything up to achieve his one goal: to get into the Digital Fortress program and modify the algorithms, and then use it as NSA’s greatest landmark, to continually protect its own nation from the terrors of the own world. But Susan refused to believe, and as she continued to work for Strathmore to break the algorithm, a thousand miles away, David Becker struggled so many nerve-wracking events just to locate the ring, which was rumoured to contain Tankado’s last pass-key to the Digital Fortress yet unknowing that he was stalked by hired assassin so-called Hulohot. The climax started to step on the breaks when Susan discovered about Greg Hale’s lifeless body on the floor, pointing all evidences to Commander Strathmore; evidences that would tell he was the one who planned everything, including the killings, especially the recent target, her fiancé, David Becker. Due to overheat, TRANSLATR destroyed itself, along with Strathmore, leaving the NSA’s main databank to be vulnerable to a worm released by Digital Fortress. Tankado made everything a hoax; his pure goal was to produce Digital Fortress as a cover-up to bypass the Gaunlet, a filtering system, and launch the worm into the main databank. Jabba, a NSA anti-hacker expert, along with Susan and the rest of the staff, helped to solve the riddle of the pass-key. Without the pass-key, the main databank would be destroyed, leaving NSA open to the whole world, including the advanced security tactics of USA, weaponry and highly-classified intelligence. With brilliant simplicity, they all solved it using Tankado’s favourite saying himself, “Who will guard the guards?”, along with his obsession for prime numbers. Everything was then restored as David Becker proposed to Susan Fletcher the question for her acceptance for marriage.
It would be a downright matter indeed that there is an agency in US that intrudes the privacy of people, using decrypting methods. We tackle such issues today, as we try to imagine ourselves having sent emails freely yet without consciously knowing that somebody out there is trying to read it for instances like classified information – it’s a nightmarish picture really. But we also try to ruminate that NSA is trying to protect the welfare of its country by tracking terrorism and preventing it to happen. It’s both pros and cons mixed altogether. The issue of hacking is also present in this book like getting passwords for instance, especially inserting chips under your keyboard and traces the keys you just typed in.
Digital Fortress is not a bad book; it delivers the right amount of tension, national intrigue, web of deception, intelligent storyline, sometimes a frighteningly real plot, and some gut-wrenching action. But what’s wrong in the book was that it has Dan Brown’s methodical formula written all over it. It’s easily predictable, including the mastermind who sets everything moving like watching a banal game of chess. Also, the last two hundred pages of the book was hitched with so much action scenes that sometimes it blurs you out, a hint that so much speed could cause a glitch in your own system. This is easily Dan Brown’s weakest novel up to date. Although it’s almost real enough, it doesn’t catapult into the phenomenal crescendo of Angels & Demons, or the religiously beguiling The Da Vinci Code, and the majestically explosive Deception Point. But in fact, what made this book good to read is that aside from being so filled with terms, Dan Brown made it sure that he writes for everyone, and not just for computer brainiacs or techno-geeks out there.

Rating: B-